Ken Vandermark & Nate Wooley at the Warhol

I thought the wax in my ears was playing tricks on me. When Nate Wooley and Ken Vandermark started playing together at the Andy Warhol Museum's theater, their first piece placed both of them in the high, upper register, and my ears responded by hearing a lower note beneath theirs. Talking to a few people in the days following the show, I deduced that it wasn't me, but the room creating that extra note as the high pitches bounced off the walls. Further, Vandermark does this with a performance, "checking the room" to see how possible it is.

It's been eight years since saxophonist/clarinetist Vandermark dropped into Pittsburgh. I remember it well because it was a wintry night when the Vandermark 5 played the same stage, and I was still a few months away from parenthood.

While that 2007 show featured a full band, last Wednesday (January 21) was an evening of solo and duo sets. Wooley came on first, armed with a trumpet, mute and narrow piece of sheet metal. When he emitted his first super-soft long tone, it threatened to turn into one of those minimal performances where the note is less important than how it gets manipulated. But it shifted into high gear quickly. Wooley created two tones by getting the metal to vibrate against the mute. He also scraped the metal on the bell of the horn (if you hate the sound of metal on metal, cover your ears). After squirting around his horn's upper register, he easily shifted into the warm, middle register, finally ending with a relaxed tune.

Wooley was quiet and rather serious during his set, compared to Vandermark who spoke to the sizeable crowd between pieces. "It's alright if you want to go," he said towards the door as one patron apparently had enough after a clarinet piece dedicated to filmmaker Michael Snow, marked by slap tonguing and long tones. Switching to tenor, he kept a rhythm going by hitting the pads so precisely that it almost sounded like a digital loop. Strapping on his mighty baritone, he explored the whole register of the horn, concluding with a rhythmic groove that evoked Sun Ra.

After an intermission, Wooley and Vandermark returned to the stage together for a series of duets. They paid tribute to the trumpet-reed duo of John Carter and Bobby Bradford by playing a few of that pair's compositions among their own. Carter's "And She Speaks" started the set and gave the first ear-harmonic twist.

There's value in seeing a group like this on the final night of their tour because they've had numerous sets to grow as a unit, and Vandermark and Wooley were in sync with each other. Wooley's "Best Coast" (hopefully that's right; it was an homage to the Pacific Northwest) featured trumpet smears and growls against clarinet slap tonguing. His trumpet imitated an analog synthesizer during Vandermark's avant "Call the Numbers."

Despite a healthy amount of squonk and squealing (which, admittedly, made me hold my ears at times) the duo also delivered many delicate moments too. "Killtown" started off almost like a Gerry Mulligan tune and "General Sherman" ended the evening with a brief ballad.

Seated in front of me in the Warhol theater were two women with a girl who seemed to be about tween age, playing one of those candy games on the phone prior to the start of the show. Throughout the night, one or both of the women looked at the girl with expressions that said, "what do you think of that," in response to the music. Some cynical people might expect the response to be eye-rolling and fidgeting in the seat. But actually, the girl responded with wonder and amazement. She might have thought the sounds were crazy, but she clearly dug them. The three of them stayed for the whole show as well. Hopefully they'll make it to other performances like this and who knows maybe the young lady will be part of tomorrow's experimental music scene.

LP Review: Áine O'Dwyer - Music for Church Cleaners, Vol. I and II

Áine O'Dwyer

Music for Church Cleaners, Vols. 1 and II

(MIE) www.miemusic.co.uk

If you had unlimited access to a church's pipe organ, what would you play? Scary movie music? "Baby Elephant Walk" and "Alley Cat"? An imitation of Keith Emerson or Jimmy Smith? 

It might be tempting to simply hold down a chord or two and bask in the rich swell of the sound emanating from the pipes, pulling drawbars in and out to see how the tone changes and reverberates around the room.

Áine O'Dwyer, who normally plays improvised music on the harp, had this golden opportunity at St. Mark's Church in Islington (United Kingdom). The pipe organ was being cleaned so she was able to sit down and the keyboard and basically tinker with it. She recorded everything and originally released on a cassette, presenting a personal field recording. Vacuum cleaners whir in the background as she plays, as do children's voices. Most entertaining is an exchange between O'Dwyer and a church employee on "An Unkindness of Ravens," the seventh track.

Woman: A request from the ladies...

O'Dwyer: Oh. Stop playing?

W: (warmly) No, no, no. When you hold it on one note for a long time, can you keep it quiet? Or can you just not... stay on one note for a long time? 

O: Okay, yes.

W: Okay? Sorry.

O'Dwyer does enjoy pedal point drones (the first track in fact is titled "Pedal Danse") and the lady quoted above returns later in the album to again remind her that her sustained notes can be felt throughout the building. But most often, her choice of tempo is slow, akin to the hymns that might be played normally on the organ,, with the same kind of harmonic framework. This isn't noisy, free improvisation by any means. The combination of background sounds and drones make it more like meditation music.

The sound of the organ is rich and beautiful, and O'Dwyer does get takes the sounds of Bach into the realm of post rock and occasional psychedelia. But 91 minutes of these drones can be hard to take all at once. (The original cassette release was half this size.) After awhile, the conversations and ambient sounds become almost more interesting that the music itself. 

Yet that was O'Dwyer's goal - to document it with the approach of John Cage, letting all found sounds become part of the music. Further, the reissued, expanded version is coming out on vinyl (limited edition of 500), so it comes with three built-in breaks during the program. (My advance copy came as a download of the whole set.) Hearing it that way, or in its original cassette form, can make all the difference. In bite size pieces, it sounds enthralling.

Willie's Country Roadhouse and me

When I finally heard "Green Green Grass of Home" all the way through, listening to all the lyrics and not just thinking of it as some cornball song delivering by someone like Tom Jones, I started to think of it like an O. Henry story After it gets to the spoken part about "I was only dreaming," it becomes clear that it isn't just some "I want to go back home" song. Then there's the double metaphor about how he'll touch that green green grass again - from beneath it. It's great writing.

I've been thinking of that a lot lately. At the end of November, I bought a new car and it came with a three-month trial of Sirius XM radio. A few weeks ago, my son was fiddling with the Sirius dial and came across Willie's Country Roadhouse, a station "hosted" by Willie Nelson that plays nothing but "Classic Country." And they're right about that. I've heard folks that I know and others that I've only seen in print: Kitty Wells, Del Reeves, Buck Owens, Stonewall Jackson, a whole lotta Waylon Jennings (I think they play him once every hour), Hank Thompson, Charley Pride.

The thing that I love about this music is that these people know how to spin a yarn. They sing about the same topics: lovin', drinkin', loneliness, the Good Book, cheatin'. But they manage to put original spins on it each time. Charley Pride has a song called "Does My Ring Hurt Your Finger" and it's not until the end of the first verse - which follows an opening chorus - that you get the whole plot line, as it were: His wife is going out to the shows without him, which is cool, but she's leaving her wedding band at home. Rather than asking, why are you cheating on me, he asks the title question, saying he can get it adjusted at the jewelry store.

When was the last time it took a whole paragraph to outline a Kenny Chesney song?

Another great aspect of this station is they have a really vast playlist. I'm still hearing new songs and when they play songs that I've already heard, there is usually a period of several days in between the overlap. While the djs probably record their breakers in advance, it has a live feel. Plus their downhome delivery is infectious.

There's also a lack of pretense in the music. The arrangements are often similar, with a meowing pedal steel playing in the intro, but everything works towards the message of the song, not sounding slick. The only time I felt like things started to sound bland was during an Oak Ridge Boys song that I heard a few nights ago. "Y'all Come Back Saloon" sounded like it was focused more on the group's voices to the exclusion of the storyline itself, which got a little muddled. When the chorus repeats that much, you're going more for crowd-pleasing singalongs than storytelling, and showing a line to more "modern country."

I'm sure I won't subscribe to XM radio once the free trial is up, but it's almost tempting.

But music like this is what's keeping me from listening to, and writing about, more music here.

CD Review: Lennie Tristano - Chicago April 1951

Lennie Tristano
Chicago April 1951
(Uptown) www.uptownrecords.net

During his piano solo on the uptempo "Palo Alto," Lennie Tristano plays a chorus that rolls on for at least 12 bars without a break in the melodic development. It's the equivalent to a horn player blowing for that long without stopping to take a breath. Tristano rattles off a rather even set of eighth notes, perhaps a little straid compared to what his pianistic peers were doing at the time, but the ideas at the foundation of it are startling, in length and continuity.

Tristano's legacy has its fair share of followers, who rabidly champion his teachings. (He was one of the first serious teachers of post-war jazz.) Lee Konitz and Warne Marsh were two of his most famous students, but pianist Connie Carothers also carries the Tristano flag in her solid work.

Yet he isn't always talked about in the same pantheon of other post-war jazz pianists, due in part perhaps to his reluctance to take the usual jazz musician track of playing nightclubs to the often less-than-appreciative audience. (This disc includes one such example of Tristano giving a snarky-yet-professional rejoinder to someone wanting to hear "Tennessee Waltz.") While the music was rich in melodic extrapolations, there are times when it could come across as a bit academic, with the rewritten themes to standards coming off a bit like complex practice routines. (See Warne Marsh's Intuition album.) Tristano also liked his rhythm sections to play it pretty straight, leaving the heavy lifting to him and the horns.

Having said that, this album presents all the strong points of Tristano's legacy, and then some. Recorded fairly well at Chicago's Blue Note Jazz Club, the pianist leads a group not only with Konitz and Marsh but trombonist Willie Dennis, perhaps best known for his appearance of Charles Mingus's Mingus Ah Um, and another student of the maestro. Buddy Jones and Mickey Simonetta round out the group on bass and drums, respectively.

Though Tristano calls the tunes, acts the leader and clearly presides over the music, many of the songs come from Konitz and Marsh, who write their own heads for jazz standards. What comes across most significantly is the way the horns handle this rocky terrain so gracefully. While the saxophonists were brothers at arms, Dennis fits in tightly with them, the resulting harmonies recalling the Miles Davis Birth of the Cool sessions, in which Konitz participated a few years prior.

The depth of the rhythm section doesn't always come across in the recordings, so it's often hard to try and follow the harmonic cues the musicians are using. Jones plays steady walking bass lines virtually throughout the whole package and Simonetta is solid but restrained.  When the chord changes get a little blurry, the focus moves to the solos themselves. It's easy to get lost in them, so expansive are these guys. The two-disc set includes many of the major works that Konitz had recorded for Prestige and New Jazz at the time: "Sound-Lee" (a rework of "Too Marvelous for Words"), "Palo Alto" ("Strike Up the Band"), "Tautology" ("Indiana," the basis for Tristano's "No Figs" as well). Marsh contributes "Background Music" (based on "All of Me") and gets credit for two versions of "I Can't Believe That You're In Love With Me Variations." Both horn men penned "Sax of a Kind," which is based on "Fine and Dandy."

Chicago April 1951 can arguably be placed with those original studio recordings considering there are few documents of the group playing them live, and none with Dennis in the fold.

CD Review: Phil Haynes-No Fast Food - In Concert

Phil Haynes - No Fast Food

In Concert

(CornerStoreJazz) www.philhaynes.com

Drummer Phil Haynes drew inspiration for the No Fast Food trio from Elvin Jones' post-Coltrane trios, which featured bassist Jimmy Garrison and saxophonist Joe Farrell. On two albums, that trio kept one foot on the ground while pushing the limits of piano-less, horn driven jazz. 

The name No Fast Food implies that these guys aren't going to settle for mass producing something lacking in quality ingredients or nutrition, which would be easy to consume and forget about once that moment is over. Quite the contrary. If names alone establish credibility, saxophonist David Leibman (who played with Elvin Jones a few years after said albums) and bassist Drew Gress (a leader as well as one-time bandmate to Tim Berne, Fred Hersch and Ravi Coltrane) take the cake. Together with Haynes  - himself a 30-year vet who has worked with Anthony Braxton, Dave Douglas and others - these guys operate on the same plain, with the ability to shift from pensive to wild, ballad to free squonk. 

Most of the two-disc set was recorded at Rochester, New York's Bop Shop, with a few tracks coming from Elk Creek Cafe & Aleworks in Millheim, PA. (It's good to know that a place like that caters to this kind of adventurous music. The audience seems to agree.) Haynes receives credit for all the compositions, but many could very easily have been spontaneous group efforts. "Zen Lieb" opens the second disc with a bowed bass and wooden flutes, making it one of the more esoteric pieces of the set. Haynes sounds content to keep his efforts to the cymbals, rolling and bowing as needed, making the whole thing a unique tone poem. 

The leader's unique approach to his kit factors into the music's impact. In "West Virginia Blues," his mix of kick drum accents and stick work almost sounds like two drummers intertwined. Liebman, who projects authority from the first note he plays, whether on disc or in person, begins the track with an unaccompanied tenor solo. The jagged melody that cues in the group recalls Tim Berne's Bloodcount, establishing order out of limitless freedom. 

Gress is one of those musicians who shows up on numerous albums by an array of leaders, and In Concert offers plenty of reasons why. "Together," which probably comes the closest to those early Elvin Jones trio sides, has a bass solo marked by some fine double-stops. On his own in "Out of the Bowels," Gress produces some wonderfully jarring harmonies, that shift into fast runs and bits of disjointed melodies that actually convergence into a richer picture. 

Despite coming from two different sources, the music on In Concert was recorded only two days apart and the whole thing has the feeling of two complete sets. From the moment the trio hits on the first track, the engagement of a live performance comes across.

Me and the 2014 NPR Music Jazz Critics Poll

For about the past five years, I've been polled as part of a national survey of jazz critics for the best albums of the year. The results have run on a few different websites, and this year, it's on NPR. The results were posted this past Friday, and can be found here.

Often times, I feel like the odd man out. The albums that top the charts are ones that I either haven't heard yet or that fly under my radar. Not so this year. Four of the Top 10 albums were things that I picked, including #1 and #2! Does it mean that I'm keeping up with the big guys, or that my tastes are finally gaining wider acceptance? I'll let you answer that.

I'll Have a Bland Christmas...

I've never really cared either way for the holiday perennial "Santa Baby." Eartha Kitt's original version was fine, complete with male "ba-boom" vocals in the background and Henri Rene's sly swinging bachelor pad accompaniment. Recorded in 1953, when Ms. Kitt's shopping list ('54 convertible, yacht, a big fancy ring) was mildly amusing, as few gals really expected to get that. Still as far as Christmas songs about riches go, I prefer Pearl Bailey's "Five Pound Box of Money," for its sheer audacity, not to mention the singer's easygoing honesty, as opposed to Ms. Kitt's iciness.

When Madonna covered "Santa Baby," it came as no surprise. After all she was known as the Material Girl, and who better to make like she was entitled to the fancy wish list (or should that be "demand" list.). From what I recall, her version is pretty much a carbon copy of the original, which begs the question, what's the point?

But, it's all in the delivery, right?

Now, granted I'm behind the times by about seven years on this. But I was forced to hear Taylor Swift's version of "Santa Baby" recently, not knowing it was her or that it'sold news. Yes, everyone does a Christmas album these days, because it practically guarantees that no matter how bad your career goes, you at least get some airplay one month out of the year. (I"m talking about you, Wilson Phillips)
.
The thing that's so annoying about Ms. Swift's "Santa Baby," is that the modern country arrangement of the song was done completely by the numbers. They got the chord changes right. But there's no feeling. There's no camp to this song. There's not even any, um, sexy quality to it. Swift was 18 when the song came out, so she can be excused for not giving it that quality.

So all we're left with is a big-voiced gal belting out a shopping list for Santa, which in post-millennial years doesn't sound as outrageous because we expect to see pop stars with all sorts of bling, like a fancy ring and a convertible. And Taylor already has the deed that gets mentioned in the song. Which is probably why she doesn't sound any more believable singing this song than some 7-year old big voiced kid who you'd find on America's Got Talent. But she really doesn't (or didn't) have the credibiliy to pull it off. She would have been better off singing "I Want a Hippopotamus for Christmas."

But then again, what do I know? I never get tired of the Singing Dogs doing "Jingle Bells."

CD Review: Bud Powell - Live at the Blue Note Cafe Paris 1961

Bud Powell
Live at the Blue Note Cafe, Paris 1961
(ESP-Disk') www.espdisk.com

This album marks the second reissue by ESP of live Bud Powell recordings this year, following the three-disc Birdland 1953 set of radio recordings that appeared earlier. While the pianist's output after 1954 is considered inconsistent, thanks in part to his mental instability, here he shows no signs on weakness, playing with sympathetic musicians (French bassist Pierre Michelot and American expatriate Kenny Clarke) who know how to lock in with him. Additionally, several tracks capture him stretching out, which is exciting to anyone used to hearing Powell in the three- to five-minute format.

The same year as these performances, Cannonball Adderley produced a Powell session for Columbia Records called A Portrait of Thelonious that featured four compositions by his good friend. Monk was clearly on his mind and in his set that year. "Thelonious" sounds particularly compelling because of the way Clarke accents the melody so tightly, right in the pocket with Powell, who adds the appropriate spark to the simple melody. While the composer recorded that tune several times, it rarely possessed this kind of interaction in tandem with his musical personality.

"Monk's Mood," a lesser known ballad with an equally lush and deceptive line, sounds strong too. "Round Midnight" was well on its way to becoming a jazz standard, but Powell keeps it fresh by attacking the chords with gravity.

The first three tracks on the album augment the trio with tenor saxophonist Zoot Sims. They stretch out on "Groovin' High," which includes two separate solos by Powell. "Taking a Chance on Love" gives everyone blowing time, with the pianist's melodic ideas sounding especially crisp and concise. Sims' subdued, somewhat smoky tone fits right in with the trio, most notably on the "Bud Blues," a mid-tempo 12-bar workout that segues into the set-closer "52nd Street Theme," another Monk tune. Bebop vehicle "Shaw Nuff" was the rapid tune that proved the mettle of players during this time, and Powell definitely flies here.

The sound quality is strong throughout the set, which is a good part of the reason this session sounds so rewarding: Michelot's strong walking line is heard clearly in a track like "Bud Blues," Clarke's bomb drops put Powell's creativity in high relief and, overall, the leader seems to have an unending, focused well of ideas. More than simply another collection of jazz evergreens, this album provides another worthy addition to the Powell canon from a time when he was still firing on all cylinders.

In Memory of John P. Shanley, Sr

Last Thursday, my dad, John P. Shanley, passed away at the age of 79. Without going into details, it was an illness that came on fairly quickly. The last couple weeks were really painful for him, which was hard to witness. I'm glad he's at peace, though I wish he was still here.

There were a lot of layers to my dad. He could be reserved and soft spoken. He could be loud and opinionated. He loved his spy novels, but he also loved vintage comedy, which seemed as funny to him in the moment as it did when he first saw it decades ago. Almost every situation was ripe for a wry comment or observation.  I remember him telling me that on his final day of work, when he finally retired from United Mental Health, Inc., he marked the end of the day – and really, the end of an era – by marching a toy robot out of his office to indicate that he was about to leave.

If he really found something hilarious, he would let fly with a raspy laugh that sounded like metal rake being dragged across cement – a Shanley family trait which I heard coming from my aunt Mary Jeanne many times as well.

When I was in college I frequently came over for Sunday dinner and Pop often slipped me a couple dollars. “Don’t tell your mother,” he’d say. And he didn't say this because Mum would object to me getting the money. It might have been her idea, for all I know. “Don’t tell you mother,” was a line from a comedy routine by Shelley Berman, based on a conversation he had with his father.

I discovered this comedy bit through my folks. In it, Berman recounts how he wanted to join his friends at acting school and needed to ask his dad for the money to do it. Too afraid to ask him in person, he calls his day at work – at a delicatessen. On a Saturday, the busiest day of the week. 

You hear the phone conversation only on the father’s side. He’s already mad that he’s being pulled away from work, and he gets even madder when he hears that his son wants money for acting school - something he consider frivolous.

But as the conversation goes on, he gets his son to commit to working in the shop and he’ll give him the money, including “a Christmas bonus,” which is why the Jewish father tells him, “don’t tell you mother.”

In the set-up of the routine, Berman jokes about his dad but also defends him, saying he’s a good person. And you hear that as the bit proceeds. The father’s anger turns to support – even if he thinks his son is crazy, he’ll be there for him, reminding him, “No matter what happens, here, you’ll always a home.” I love this comedy routine because in addition to being funny it’s also poignant – a homage to his dad.

I once had a phone call with Pop that I feel paralleled Berman’s. I was taking a class in college that I thought I was going to fail and I wanted to drop it. But I was worried about how that was going to affect my financial aid. So I figured I’d call the house and get some perspective – from my mother. If I talked to Pop, I figured I’d be in trouble.

I called my parents’ house – and Pop picked up. Here it comes, I thought. He’s going to give it to me.

I told him what was going on. I couldn’t hack the class. I was afraid I was going to fail. What do I do?

Much to my surprise – and relief – Pop was cool. And empathetic. Don’t give up. Talk to your professor. If you’re straight with her, she ought to understand. 

He went on to explain that when he was going to Duquesne, he had a similar experience. He was working overnights at the J&L mill, going to school by day and needed to talk to a prof, and the two worked things out. In talking about his combination of school and work, he had to lighten the mood with a joke, “You get a difference perspective on things when you have three squealers at home,” which affectionately referred to my three older brothers.

I knew that he had worked overnights and had gone to school during the day. But it never occurred to me why up until that point. That was what you did to support your family. The weekend performances at Churchill Valley Country Club – it wasn’t just a music gig, even if the band really swung. It was to support the family.

The impact of what he said on the phone that day might not have been immediate but I did realize at some point that if he could do all that, one anthropology class is nothing for me. I could pull myself up by my bootstraps and work a little harder. And I did. And I got an A. When I told him that, he said, “See I told ya.” And it wasn't a patronizing thing. It was said with that mischievous look in his eye, that had wisdom with it.

Sometimes the things that you learn from your parents are not the things they say to you directly. They’re the things you discover after they’ve put you on the path of your life. The in-between things that you don’t even realize at the time.

There were a lot qualities that my dad possessed. One of the biggest ones was that he was deep. 

CD Review: Charles Lloyd- Manhattan Stories

Charles Lloyd
Manhattan Stories
(Resonance) resonancerecords.org

2014 will probably be seen as a banner year for Resonance Records. Within a few months of each other they released John Coltrane's Offering: Live at Temple University (which is probably the most talked-about album of the year, other than Mostly Other People Do the Killing's Blue) and this two-disc set of two newly discovered live recordings by saxophonist Charles Lloyd. Like the Coltrane set, Manhattan Stories also comes with a huge booklet of photos and essays, including an interview with Lloyd, all of it added to the set.

Both performances occurred during the summer and early autumn of 1965 and they represent an exciting "in-between" time for the tenor saxophonist. Lloyd had already logged time with the groups of Chico Hamilton and Cannonball Adderley (the latter considered by many to be "mismatch," as Michael Cuscuna mentions in this liner notes). He also finished sessions for Of Course Of Course, his second Columbia album earlier that year with guitarist Gabor Szabo, bassist Ron Carter and drummer Tony Williams. By the summer, Williams was gone, replaced by Pete LaRoca, whose performances can inspire one to search out the few albums he made as a leader, to get a greater dose of his powerful, unsung playing.

One disc comes from a set the group played at the Festival of the Avant-Garde at Judson Hall. The other comes from a gig recorded at the infamous Lower East Side club Slugs' Saloon. The sound quality of both sets is impeccable, capturing the excitement of these four at a time before they became revered jazz legends, but clearly revealing why such designations eventually came along, at least for a couple of them.

Considering the direction of jazz in 1965 and the name of the Festival of the Avant-Garde, disc one doesn't find the Lloyd quartet heading outward in any extreme direction. But even with their feet remaining on the ground, the three lengthy tracks have plenty of fire power. "Sweet Georgia Bright," from his Columbia debut Discovery! (all these exclamatory statements!) goes on for nearly 18 minutes, none of it excessive, from Lloyd's somewhat throaty tenor to Sims' propulsive work all over his kit. The tender ballad "How Can I Tell You" stretches out for over 11 minutes, and Szabo's "Lady Gabor" has the leader on flute for the first of two versions of this 6/4 vamp.

Despite its fertile ground for musical innovation, Slugs' had a seedy reputation too. This was a place where pushers and hustlers co-mingled with musicians like Jackie McLean and Sun Ra, or Salvador Dali, who showed up at least once with an entourage. For better or worse, the space has gone down in history as the locale where trumpeter Lee Morgan was shot and killed by his ex-girlfriend in 1972, which eventually put the kibosh on the joint. So it comes as no surprise that audience chatter can be heard during the Lloyd set recorded there. But if anything, the rugged nature of the room brought out the best in the band.

Also consisting of three lengthy tunes, disc two begins with "Slugs' Blues" which Lloyd supposedly wrote virtually on the spot. While adhering to the traditional structure, the group mixes it up as they go. Most impressive is Carter who walks a bit, switches to rich double stops and then, in his own solo adds some flatted fifth to make it sound even richer. No wonder someone (maybe a band member, maybe an audience member) repeated yells, "Yeah," throughout the set. La Roca really drives the second "Lady Szabo," which gets all manner of ideas out of Lloyd, including a moment where he predicts the vocal style of Leon Thomas. "Dream Weaver," later to be the title track of high-regarded album, is heard here in its early, but clearly set, stages.

A year later, Lloyd would form his own "classic" quartet with Jack DeJohnette, Cecil McBee and Keith Jarrett, and the Lloyd band heard here would be remembered only by a few. Thankfully, a few people had the foresight to document this work, which serves as a reminder that legends have to start somewhere.

Loss of Another Friend

Death is a natural part of our day-to-day existence. We get older, our bodies don't work like they used to. All that carefree living catches up with us. And, of course, unforeseen things happen. That doesn't make it any easier to deal with loss.

I just found out last night, via Facebook, that my friend and former bandmate (very briefly) Erin Hutter (known affectionately to many as "Scratchy") died. Even as I type this, I wish I could be proven wrong. Details are sketchy at this point about what exactly happened. All I know is she was about my age, maybe a year or two older, which is too young to go.

Erin played violin and sang in the band the Deliberate Strangers, who were playing punk-influenced country long before there was a bandwagon to jump on. They knew their roots and their instruments. We got to know each other fairly well from their shows. Then, briefly we both played in the band Boxstep, although I didn't last that long in the band. That's when we became tight. When feeling frustrated, Erin was an empathetic voice. She was a school music teacher by day, which is probably where that patience and compassion came from.

I honestly can't remember the last time I saw her, and that's the part that really bothers me. As life goes on, your circles of friends overlap and shift gradually. It usually has little to do with rapport with people and everything to do with responsibilities we accumulate. But you always figure that you'll see someone again and be able to smack them on the arm when you say hi, and that warm feeling from the good old days will start up again instantly. I'm not one to quote James Taylor, but the reason I don't completely despise the song "Fire and Rain" is because the first verse and the chorus really nail that sense of loss on the head, with just a few simple words. "....but I always thought I'd see you again." (As far as I'm concerned, the song can stop right there.)

There's probably more I could say on the subject, but that's it for now. Goodbye, Scratchy. XO

CD Review: Mostly Other People Do the Killing - Blue

Mostly Other People Do the Killing
Blue
(Hot Cup) www.hotcuprecords.com

I once attended a local jazz competition, where three groups were competing for different packages of studio time and the cost of a CD pressing. One of the group consisted of four (maybe five) guys, who looked to be around the age of undergraduates, give or take a year. They knew the ins and outs of their instruments and it showed in their demeanor, which for a few of them bordered on cocksure, especially the bass player, who donned shades even in the darkness of the club.

They opened their set with Dave Brubeck's "Blue Rondo a la Turk." No simple task - especially when you consider how hard it can be to breath during that tune while blowing the saxophone - they nailed it, tightly recreating Brubeck's original arrangement. After doing the alternating 9/8 and 4/4 sections, the saxophonist and pianist probably played their own solos rather than recreating what Brubeck and Paul Desmond played on the original recording. But by that point, it didn't really matter. The guys had achieved their goal: they showed their roots and they showed their facility. And really, that's why anyone would play "Blue Rondo a la Turk." It's not a blowing vehicle. ("Take Five" presents more of a challenge that way, and that's even more of a crowd-pleaser in a general sense.)

On one level, it was impressive, and it was clear these guys had spent a great deal of time practicing and working together as a unit. But on the other hand - what's the point? It's almost better to play the theme of "Now's the Time," a much simpler melody, and show what you can do over blues changes (the same type of changes used in the solo section of "Blue Rondo" anyway).

Mostly Other People Do the Killing are known as jazz provocateurs, paying homage to their forefathers as they spoof the seriousness of jazz. Their early albums recreated cover art of classics by the Jazz Messengers, Ornette Coleman and Roy Haynes. The liner notes, often attributed to one Leonard Featherweight (and actually penned by the band's bassist and mastermind Moppa Elliot) play along straight-faced, sometimes taking the joke a tad too far, which has both amused and bugged me. When covering the iconic "A Night in Tunisia" drummer Kevin Shea not only referenced Art Blakey's drum licks but the entire history of drum solos, up through Led Zeppelin's John Bonham, with a little disco thrown in too, if I remember correctly.

But beyond the shtick, the band cooks, to borrow a phrase Featherweight, or Leonard Feather, might use. Elliot is a sharp composer who, throughout the band's first six albums, has penned music that picks up where Ornette Coleman left off, took inspiration from '20s and 30s' jazz and even claimed to honor smooth jazz on one album (it didn't, literally, but it was a strong album). Yes, irony seems to be a factor, even though they stated their cover of Billy Joel's "Allentown" was both sincere and in keeping with Elliot's early habit of naming songs after city's in his native Pennsylvania. (I'm still waiting for "Pittsburgh," Moppa.)

After all the big projects they've tackled, it seems like the logical next step would be to take on an iconic album. And what better album is there to tackle than Miles Davis' Kind of Blue, which routinely appears at the top of lists of great jazz albums? And what would be more audacious than to play the album note for note, exactly the way Miles, John Coltrane, Cannonball Adderley, Bill Evans, Wynton Kelly, Paul Chambers and Jimmy Cobb played it in 1959? The MOPDtK quartet - Elliot, Shea, trumpeter Peter Evans, saxophonist Jon Irabagon - plus pianist Ron Stabinsky did just that.

Somewhere, I read that the band has gone so far as to recreate the tape hiss of the originals. I haven't geeked out enough to check to see if they pitched the "side one" portion of the album a half-step faster, as all releases of Kind of Blue did until the '90s, but I am curious. They do effectively capture the warm echo of Columbia's 30th Street Studios.

They do it to a T. No surprises in the fadeouts. No crazy horn squonks. No drum splatters from Shea.  Hell, I even wondered if they'd recreate the false start of "Freddie Freeloader," where one of them would use the Miles rasp on Stabinsky, "Don't play no chord on the a-flat." Nope.

This album is pissing off a lot of people. A few days ago, someone on Facebook went so far as to say the estates of the original performers should sue because their solos are being recreated without royalties. Others are saying, "Why bother?"

The answer - to make a statement. Jazz has been called "America's classical music," and classical music is played the same way each time, in most situations. So no one should be surprised when jazz is played the same way. (I haven't even delved into the liner notes, a fake scholarly article by Spanish writer Jorge Luis Borges, which metaphorically explains an author's rewriting of Cervantes' Don Quixote.)

All around the country there are aspiring jazz musicians who think of Kind of Blue as jazz's brass ring and devote themselves to learning it inside out. Or maybe they're figuring out "Blue Rondo a la Turk." Where do you go after that? Does that prepare you for the jazz world? Elliot and the gang seem to be saying "no."

Maybe this album is a wake-up call, not just to those students (Elliot is a teacher) but to jazz musicians and critics everywhere. If we put jazz on a shelf, this is what we're going to wind up with eventually - something that sounds great, feels great but that ultimately sounds the same as what we've heard before. There's nothing wrong with learning an album backwards and forwards, but it's not a means to an end. (On a side note, I'd venture to say that if somebody attempted to learn an album like Andrew Hill's Point of Departure or Eric Dolphy's Out to Lunch inside out, methinks that musician would probably come away with some of their own new ideas about how to play music. But that's a debate for another day.)

Some records deserve the highest credit (you know - five stars) due to their mere existence, either for the message they send or for their audacity. (My favorite example is here.) I'm not ready to give MOPDtK such praise. The album just came out yesterday, after all. Special kudos should be given to Jon Irabagon, however, because he has the formidable task of playing both Coltrane and Cannonball's solos, one of which must have been overdubbed to achieve such a seamless flow.

But the band deserves credit for have the guts to make that statement. Blue was released by Hot Cup, Elliot's own label, so no one can grouse about some label ignoring aspiring musicians in favor of this. He's putting his money where his mouth is. Further, this is just one dot on the MOPDtK map, of which there have already been several, with more to come.

Long may you run, Mr. Elliot. You and the guys never cease to impress me, even when I feel like some of the stuff you do goes a little too far.

Although you should've given Bill Evans co-writing credit for "Blue in Green."

I Almost Died Last Week

Well, maybe that's a slight exaggeration but there were a few scary moments last Friday. Throughout the week I had been dealing with a bit of a cold and was also getting winded really easily (going up the steps in our house). I have an inhaler but it wasn't doing squat. (I found out later it was a for-everyday-use inhaler, which is really lame because it's 1/3 the size of a fast-acting one AND THREE TIMES TO CO-PAY). So I was hoping the over-the-counter Bronkaid would help. Plus I found an albuterol inhaler that expired last year but seemed to have a few puffs left in it.

Friday night, I used both, pill and inhaler, and still I couldn't catch my breath. The bus that stops about 100 feet from my house goes right by West Penn Hospital, so I got on and road over there. By this time, I had a little relief but my chest felt tight. I worried that if I took another albuterol hit, I'd have a heart attack and die. (A few days later, I was reminded that the drummer from Ladybug Transistor died of an asthma attack.)

I got in at the ER within minutes, and they made me drink two quarts of water and huff on a nebulizer about four times. (The first two times I didn't do it right.) By 4:30 I felt pretty normal. Normal enough to walk home. I was more worried about walking through Bloomfield  - having heard about people getting attacked recently - more than I was worried about keeling over on Liberty Avenue.

I had to work the next day because we were having a big event, and I only got two hours of sleep. But I honestly have to say that I felt great in the morning. I hadn't had coffee in about two days and it went straight to my head. Oxygen seemed to be flowing to my head too, because I felt more energetic at work. I still have a bit of a cough, but it's helping me get rid of stuff, if you know what I mean.

Damn, I turned 47 last week and was worried that this new age was bringing with it some serious ailments.

The night of my birthday, I went to see Mike Watt at Brillobox. He was performing with Il Sogno Del Marinaio ("the dream of the sailor"), a trio with two Italian guys, drummer Andrea Belfi and guitarist Stefano Pilla. I didn't know much about them, other than how they met. I figured it was another Watt "opera" with a new backing band. Their selt felt similar to Watt's last tour, a bigger piece made of up smaller songs. But it's largely instrumental, and Belfi and Pilla do as much of the writing as he does.

Pilla really seems to have studied his D. Boon and Nels Cline licks but rather than spewing out the same thing, he really make it his own. Same with Belfi, though he had some little gongs set up on the side, and seems like he'd be just as comfortable doing free improvisation on his kit. They played for about an hour. One encore, no Minutemen songs. No "The Red and the Black." Ed fROMOHIO was there but he stayed in the crowd. Unfortunately I missed the Sicks because I was downstairs having drinks with my friend Will, and they only gave the band about 25 minutes to play (or so it seemed).

Sicks member Sam Matthews used to be in the Bats, who I wrote about in last week's City Paper. You can read that here. The band also featured Michael Chabon briefly, long before he wrote The Mysteries of Pittsburgh and other novels.

Now it's time to face the day.

CD Review: Trio 3 with Vijay Iyer - Wiring

Trio 3 & Vijay Iyer
Wiring
(Intakt) www.intakrec.ch

To call Trio 3 a supergroup affixes an overused label to the band. But at the same time these three musicians have been at the forefront of innovative jazz, going as far back as the 1960s. Drummer Andrew Cyrille was a key member of the Cecil Taylor Unit, bassist Reggie Workman was the first bassist with John Coltrane's Quartet (and played with numerous other heavy hitters) and alto saxophonist Oliver Lake was and still is a driving force in the World Saxophone Quartet.

The band has welcomed pianists like Geri Allen and Jason Moran on previous discs for Intakt. So bringing on Vijay Iyer seemed like a natural choice. Each of them brought compositions to the session, Iyer with the most ambitious one, the three-part "Suite for Trayvon (and Thousands More)," which is dark and ominous, parts sounding written-through while others sections open up a little more.

The mood shifts greatly with each track, playing up the depth of the players. Iyer's "The Prowl" builds on a steady bass vamp with a staccato theme on piano and alto. Immediately following is "Synapse II" which begins with an alto shriek and stays pretty free and loose. Workman, who penned that one, also wrote "Willow Song," a rubato set of bowed bass and stormy piano, with plenty of dramatic beauty.

Lake's two compositions have loose sketches of themes that quickly slide into loose improvisation. A snare crack regularly cues things back around during the title track. "Shave" gets dark and stormy, with rolls and crashes again between band statements, with Iyer exploring some Cecil Taylor key strikes and Lake raising the excitement with some fast squonks and wails.

Cyrille might have spent the '60s proving that jazz could survive without a steady 4/4 groove, but "Tribute to Bu" proves that he can lay down a solid Art Blakey groove as good as anyone else. Each of his bandmates briefly pop up during the track for a dialogue during the track.

On the subject of straight ahead jazz, "Chiara" (written by pianist Curtis Clark) proves they know as much about this style as any young lion, and maybe a little more. While Workman lays down a 3/4 tempo, Cyrille toys with it and Iyer makes some original choices about what to do with the changes. Anyone who thinks that free players don't have an appreciation for tradition needs to pipe down and listen up.

Wiring doesn't sound like a band-with-special-guest album or a leader-with-a-guest-band session. These are four minds working together for the common good, which this disc definitely is.

CD Review: Wadada Leo Smith - The Great Lakes Suites

Wadada Leo Smith
The Great Lakes Suites
(TUM) www.tumrecords.com

Trumpeter Wadada Leo Smith has recently been composing large scale works. Ten Freedom Summers (Cuneiform, 2012) was a four-disc set of compositions dedicated to the civil rights movement of the US. Last year, he released Occupy the World (TUM), which was written for a TUMO, a 22-piece improvising orchestra.

His latest takes as its subject matter the Great Lakes, located in the northern part of the United States: Michigan, Ontario, Superior, Huron and Erie. He has also composed a piece for Lake St. Clair, a smaller body of water in that area that is considered to be a great lake contender. The piece is also dedicated to saxophonist Oliver Lake, who Smith considers "another Great Lake."

The two-disc set doesn't attempt to capture the qualities of each lake in composition, so much as use the idea as a launching point. Besides, the significant thing about this music is the band that the trumpeter assembled to play it: Henry Threadgill (alto saxophone, flute, bass flute), John Lindberg (bass) and Jack DeJohnette (drums). Hearing an A-list group like this is a rarity and everyone brings a great level of excitement to the work.

Smith, who has also lead a band devoted to Miles Davis' electric period, plays in a manner that recalls that trumpeter's approach, where simple, dramatic phrases can have as great an impact as faster, complex lines. He regularly blows long tones, occasionally splitting notes for extra dynamics. Whatever he plays demands attention.

Threadgill, who hasn't stretched out as much on his own recent albums, gets plenty of room to put his unique alto voice on display. His crisp tone combines with a gravelly set of ideas. His flutes add extra depth to the music, especially in "Lake Ontario," which is the one moment that seems to evoke a flowing body of water. The bass flute in "Lake Erie" begins with a rusty shriek, going on into rich solo filled with vibrato.

Lindberg often acts as the anchor to the music, keeping things together as his co-horts cut loose. But he also gets in some wild bowing, especially in "Lake Ontario." "Lake Huron" also gives him a chance to put down a groove, later in the piece.

Forget for a moment that Jack DeJohnette is behind the drum kit and his free flowing percussive work could be attributed to Famadou Don Moye or the late Phillip Wilson. While he's better known for his work as a leader and for holding down the tempo on classic albums by Miles Davis and Charles Lloyd, DeJohnette was involved with the AACM early on and he is fluent in this aspect of playing too. He impressively plays his first solo in "Lake Michigan" just on the rims, later moving across the whole kit with a frenzy, as Lindberg bows behind him.

The six compositions each last anywhere from 10 to over 20 minutes. They come with a loose, flowing feel, making them sound pretty spontaneous upon first examination. But each consists of different sections, with different instruments coming together or stepping back, moving into dynamic shifts that keep the energy at a high level. It evokes the spirit of the best AACM works, but with a newer focus or perspective on where the music is headed. Smith continues to be an engaging improviser, bandleader and composer.

CD Review: The Group - The Feed Back

The Group
The Feed-Back
(Schema) www.ishtar.it/

Sometime around 1970, soundtrack maven Ennio Morricone and a group of musicians known as Gruppo D'Improvvisazione Nuova Consonanza tumbled into a studio full of instruments, picked them up and let tapes capture what happened. A mere 27 minutes of music was released on Italy's RCA imprint that year, and has become an extremely collectible album. Recently, originals have gone for between $700 and $1700 on eBay and Discogs.

Schema has reissued it both on vinyl (which comes with a CD version) and a stand-alone CD, complete with a gatefold cover. At the time of its release, a freely improvising ensemble was a new "trend," according to the translated liner notes. It goes on to say most groups like that would either come at it from a jazz perspective or a classical perspective. Presumably the Group was there to bring a new approach to it. Awkward translation aside, this sentiment seems awfully quaint 44 years later.

Today, the music sounds very close to a band like Can, thanks to Renzo Restuccia's steady drumming, which adds form to these tracks. In "The Feed Back," Morricone squirts and squeals on trumpet, in the manner of Lester Bowie or Bill Dixon, a comparison that was probably coincidental. The intention here seems to be getting unconventional sounds out of conventional instruments (which has come to be known as "extended technique"). A squeaky violin highlights "Quasars," along with a percussive noise that sounds like a guitar with an effects pedal being shifted on and off, creating feedback for seconds at a time. Just when the whole thing starts to get really unbearable, the drums kick in.

"Kumbalo," the 14-minute piece that took up the second side, gets more sonically interesting. Cross-fading is the standard here, with a sitar (or something very close) buzzing away as it moves from channel to channel. Additional percussion moves in and out, mixed in a way that makes you wonder if the sounds are coming from the speakers or from a stack of boxes falling down in the next room. Like the other side of the album, a prominent bass line could have complemented the drums and elevated the music.

Fans of '70s Kraut-rock should be interested to hear an Italian counterpoint to those bands. But, brief as they are, the tracks feel a little closer to Moby Grape's meandering Grape Jam album where there's not a lot happening. The Feed Back shows what happens when you let a bunch of musicians ran amok in a studio: Playing this way is often more fun than listening to it, and what might have been new and uncharted at that time was bypassed in the ensuing years.

Hopefully my thoughts are shared by the person who paid four figures for an original copy.

CD/LP Review: John Coltrane - Offering: Live at Temple University

John Coltrane
Offering - Live at Temple University
(Impulse! - Resonance) www.resonancerecords.org/johncoltrane

It's all Allen Ginsburg's fault.

If the beat poet hadn't been performing on the campus of Temple University on November 11, 1966, more people might have gone to the concert at the university's Mitten Hall that night, where John Coltrane performed to a relatively small crowd, many of whom didn't dig what he was doing and left before it was over. If it weren't for Ginsberg, maybe an audience of more appreciative people could have gotten into the music and the show would have been a success, artistically and financially. Then there'd be more free jazz fans in the world. Maybe.

But you can't unring a bell. And now, finally, after nearly 48 years, the rest of us can hear the results of this performance.

Offering - Live at Temple University delivers the full concert from that night, which was recorded for broadcast by WRTI, the school's radio station. Coltrane - who would succumb to liver cancer in July of 1967 - was turning yet another corner in a career marked by forward motion, taking his music further away from conventional jazz. In fact, prior to the  performance, Coltrane apparently said that the event shouldn't be considered a jazz concert.

So what was it? Coltrane brought a quintet of his wife/pianist Alice Coltrane, drummer Rashied Ali, tenor saxophonist Pharoah Sanders and, subbing for regular bassist Jimmy Garrison, Sonny Johnson to Temple. In addition, he invited four percussionists to join the music. On top of that, he invited a free-thinking alto saxophonist to take a solo and another one took the liberty to jump onstage and join them. Maybe it should be considered a mind-expanding event because that's what it sounds like.

To anyone who's heard Coltrane's music leading up to that period, the expectation, after reading several preview articles over the past month, is that this music might burn your skin off, in low fidelity to boot. (Memories of the original LP release of Concert in Japan bring to mind extended, blistering solos that weren't recorded very well, and therefore hard to really wrap the head around.) But don't you believe it.

For starters, the sound on the recording might not be stellar, but it's a far cry from the lo-fi sound on The Olatunji Concert,a 2001 release that was recorded in April 1967. One mike was set up onstage to record the show. When Coltrane or Sanders are soloing, they're the predominant instrument in the mix. When they step away, the rhythm section comes into greater relief. Not ideal, but not too shabby.

Yes, things get wild. But not on the level of something like Frank Lowe's Black Beings or other such sounds that were emanating out of Lower East Side New York at the time. In fact, Sanders doesn't even appear on opener "Naima," one of Coltrane's best-known ballads. The rhythm is loose and Coltrane's tenor sax is much more aggressive, shaping and re-shaping little phrases (what Ravi Coltrane refers to as "cells"). Alice contributes a piano solo full of cascading runs and lines. Maybe it jarred some in the audience, but they probably still thought they were getting their money's worth ($2.50 per ticket). Anyone who might have picked up Live at the Village Vanguard Again that year might feel this performance was in keeping with the "Naima" that appeared on it.

"Crescent" picks up the intensity a bit more. Coltrane gets a little more aggressive, barking and wailing at times. Sanders growls and shrieks in his typical manner, but he also sounds on top of his game, pushing himself to create more musical nuances out of his personal approach to the tenor. It must have worked, because he gets shouts of encouragement from someone, probably onstage.

At some point during this tune, four percussionist join the group, at Coltrane's behest. From here until the end of the set, their groove is steady, something that might not seem to jibe with the rubato feel of the music, or with Ali's loose-limbed approach to the kit. But the addition works, adding to a trance-like feeling to the music and keeping it grounded. Also during this the piece, alto saxophonist Arnold Joyner decided to leap onstage and join the group after Alice's solo. Despite his audacity, he holds his own, unleashing a free solo that's frenetic but directed. It's not all reed biting and wide vibrato.

Then things get crazy. "Leo" was a newer piece, similar to "Sun Ship" if only because its theme was short and staccato. This is the piece that must have started driving the audience away. This is also the piece that gets talked about first when the concert is discussed. Because Coltrane starts beating his chest and singing in the middle of it. Usually, free jazz and vocals are not good bedfellows. Albert Ayler's ululating on "Oh Love of Life" offers the perfect example. It doesn't matter if he was trying to sing in a manner similar to his sax player. It sounds amateurish.

Coltrane's voice had been heard on record before. Aside from him speaking the title of A Love Supreme during that album's first section, he began wailing on Live in Seattle, in a way that almost sounded painful and definitely a bit eerie.

"Leo" doesn't sound like either of those. Here, Coltrane proves yet again that he was in total command of his musical vision and if he wanted to vocalize, he would do it and do it... pretty well. He has a strong baritone voice and his wordless chanting adds to the urgency of the music. The concert kicks into full-blown frenzy by now, but the group maintains it for all 21 minutes of this track.

After all that tumult, it seems almost appropriate that "Leo" ends cold, due to the tape machine running out.  "Offering," which he would later record in the studio, acts as sort of a come-down, a rubato ballad that begins with a wave of vibrato. He goes on to explore more cells, sounding stunning the way he adapts them slightly but effectively. At four minutes, it's significantly shorter than everything else the band played that night.

A bass solo by Sonny Jackson leads into "My Favorite Things," which had arguably become one of Coltrane's signature tunes by then. Even so, the blissful version he recorded for Atlantic has been replaced by waves of wild solos. During Alice's rolling and tumbling, Coltrane asked Steve Knoblauch, another alto saxophonist who he met earlier in the evening, to take his place in front of the mike. Like Joyner, Knoblauch blows wild and free, in a manner that doesn't seem out of place or primitive in comparison to the seasoned pros onstage. When Coltrane takes his own solo on soprano sax, the singing and chest-beating resume, the whole thing sounding more like a celebration of joie de vivre, to ensure that the evening ends at a high level.

Offering is an important document of this period of Coltrane's life, made all that more significant in part due to Ashley Kahn's extensive liner notes, which describe the scene of the performance, the music itself and the effects that it had on those who witnessed it. (Among them were then teenage saxophonist Michael Brecker and Temple student and future jazz writer Francis Davis.)

Books have been written about how Coltrane wanted to perform with several percussionists. At least one column was written that disparaged late period Coltrane shows where he beat his chest and wailed. Now is the chance to experience all of this and put the speculation to rest. The former idea wasn't overly ambitious and the latter wasn't just some flaky idea, comparable to many experimental performances from that period. John Coltrane was determined to do something new each time he played and this album proves that.

While the CD edition of the album looks exquisite, with a 24-page book full of pictures, the vinyl version is really a treat. Not only does it include the classic orange and black Impulse! spine and the record label with the exploding "i", it has a gatefold sleeve and a four-panel booklet with Kahn's notes, as well as the article from Temple's college newspaper about the money that was lost on the show. A series of photos by Frank Kofsky are reproduced on postcards too. If you're going to buy it, go all the way and get the records.

My Trip to Chicago

Last week, the family had to go to Chicago for a wedding. It was the furthest west I've ever traveled in my life, and for that reason alone, the whole trip became kind of a four-day vacation. The deal was sealed when we finally made it into Chicago - after getting in the wrong lane for an exit and having the google map app go haywire on us (giving directions and then jumping ahead before I could drive to the next instruction) - and found out valet parking at the hotel was both expensive and the only real option for dealing with the car. After that, room service was the only viable option for a late night dinner.

The good news was that our window looked right down onto Chicago's fabled Jazz Record Mart. I knew it was around the corner from us, but I didn't think it was that close. Friday afternoon, after going to the Art Institute of Chicago to see the Magritte exhibition, I broke away from the family to get to the store. You want to talk about a kid in a candy store - this place personifies the cliche. I kept running back and forth between names in the racks, between CDs and vinyl. Grabbing albums as soon as I saw them.

And who else did I happen to see that but Sean Jones, who I wrote about in the soon-to-be-released issue of JazzTimes. I knew he was playing in Chicago that night, but who'd'a thunk that we'd see each other in the Jazz Record Mart? He introduced me to Ken, the manager, who also happens to be from Meadville, PA.

After picking up a couple albums, I starting thinking of things that I can't find back here in Pittsburgh, and things that I'm always thinking that I'd like to order online, but never do. So I looked for a Steve Lehman section and found his album On Meaning. Score. I figured I probably had every Vijay Iyer album, but sure enough, I found Blood Sutra. Upon looking at the Rudresh Mahanthappa section, I found The Beautiful Enabler CD by Mauger, the trio of him, Mark Dresser and Gerry Hemingway. That's on Clean Feed, which is based in Europe so I really felt like I had to get that right away. Better to stick with three things, than go completely hog wild. Besides, I was hoping that a certain double Coltrane LP would greet me back at home when I returned. It's important to make sure there's enough time to listen to all of this. (Didn't really feel right blasting any of that with the wife and kid in the car during the driving.)

Friday night, after going back and forth in my mind, I decided to hoof it to the Jazz Showcase to see Sean play a set. It was a bit of a walk, and me being me, I got a little lost and made a wrong turn on the way. But I still got there in plenty of time to say hi to him and the band and check them out.

The second set at a Chicago jazz club - a legendary one at that, which has been presenting this kind of music since the mid 1940s - was still only filled to about 25% of its 170 seat capacity. But maybe since Sean was there for a few nights, it's different with each set and evening. Nevertheless, I was kind of surprised that it wasn't too different from what I see back home.

The quartet casually made their way to the stage and drummer Mark Whitfield., Jr. - in place of Obed Calvaire - started up the beat of a new Jones original, the name of which escapes me right now. But it was inspired, Jones said, by the realization that Art Blakey and John Coltrane didn't record much together. It might be "Art and the Mitigating Factor," but don't hold me to it.

Jones is gifted at that between-song discussions, cracking jokes as he explains songs. He took his time introducing the next song, which was written for a couple that won an auction where the prize was to have a song written for them by the trumpeter. His description of the couple, and the set-up of the song, played into the "men are from mars, women are from venus" cliche, but the song sure felt good.

Throughout the night, I felt so happy to hear Orrin Evans playing in person. His style of attack on the piano, as well as his chordal ideas, are really energizing and exciting. Most of the set consisted of songs that were newer and didn't appear on the recent im.pro.vise album, so the glory of the second set made it fun. The only damper on the evening was the middle aged woman who drank her martini too fast, got snockered and thought it was cute to keep rattling off cutesy comments and sounds during one of Jones' obbligatos. There's always one in every crowd: someone who thinks the band is playing to an audience of one. Oy.

The Jazz Showcase has a lot of pictures of musicians on the wall. The stage itself has an eight-foot poster of a classic young Charlie Parker on the back wall. Along the side walls  of the club are flyers from bygone years, advertising engagements. This one proved to be a great study in contrasts:

(For those who don't recognize the bottom name, he was the butter-toned trumpeter on all the lush Jackie Gleason albums.)

The Mail, Matthew Shipp, the Love Letters

Yesterday was a banner day for the mail. I received the October issue of JazzTimes (which has my profile of Sean Jones in it), a TIAA-CREF check and the John Coltrane CD Offering - Live at Temple University. Normally I would've ripped open the Trane disc, put the rest of my world on hold and started to listen to it. But about a week ago, I ordered the vinyl edition of it online, so I feel like I should hear it for the first time on record. I'm torn. Plus I have a couple albums to review by Monday so I feel like I should be listening to nothing but them right now.  

The week started with a performance in town by Matthew Shipp and Michael Bisio at the Frick Fine Arts Building on Pitt's campus. As usual for this town, it was sparsely attended but also as usual, these two guys were stunning. The last few times they've come to town, I've sat in a place where I can really see Shipp's hands on the piano, but this time I sat close to stage right, where the view was perfect. His arms move in a way that make it look like he's dusting off the keys as he plays. Sometimes they look like they're flailing, but they know right where to go.

The duo played for about an hour - one long series of tunes seguing into once another, with a short encore. It's clear that they're really tuned into each other after having played together for so long. Bisio could get inside of Shipp's sound and stretch it out, as Shipp played with a full-speed-ahead focus. Sometimes things flowed into the next tune, sometimes there was a great abrupt shift to the music which was exciting as well.

After the show, I ended up hanging out with the two of them, along with Manny and Nathan, who put on the show. Shipp has a reputation in print for being a firebrand, but seems like a pretty cool dude to me. Also of note was that Pitt's director of jazz studies, none other than Geri Allen, put in an appearance at the show. Anyone reading this outside of Pittsburgh might think that's cool but not exactly a big deal. Pittsburghers will know that her predecessor not only would not darken the door of a show like this, but he'd oppose any jazz show on campus that he wasn't involved with.

Thursday night, my band the Love Letters played a show at the Thunderbird Cafe. It was cool to be back there, especially since we made our official debut on that stage about five years ago. And we haven't been back since. (Not for any particular reason, other than we haven't pursued getting a show there since that time.)

We were third on a bill of three, which could have been a curse. Pittsburghers do best in the "coveted second slot" because the early arrivals are still there and a little liquored up, and the late arrivals have gotten settled in by that point. Slim Forsythe played first with a huge array of bandmates, including two singers, a trumpet player, a washboard man etc. They all managed to fit onstage and sound good, if a bit undermixed at times. Hellwood played next. They featured a core of cats from the Rickety scene, with a few relatively newer folks. Kind of eerie and spacey, with a solid rhythm section and some foreboding keyboards and vocals.

Then we got on. At this point, we're still a trio, but an impending fourth member was in the audience that night. He said he took notes on the songs we played and he later took the setlist too. We felt pretty tight and energized, despite the late hour. (I was exhausted early in the evening but rallied myself.) On the first song, my cables were giving me trouble but luckily I quickly remedied that before we continued. Another weird thing was that as I was switching out cables, I heard music emanating from my pocket. Somehow my phone had started to play the iTunes and Hospitality was blasting away.

It was kind of hard to see past the lights onstage, but what I did see was encouraging. A few people were dancing (something rare), a few were whooping and we even got called back for an encore. Next show is in November. In the meantime, we're working on getting the record released.

The Oliver Lake Big Band at City of Asylum

Each September the organization City of Asylum hosts an event on the North Side that combines poets (who are usually exiled from another country) and jazz music (which almost always involves alto saxophonist Oliver Lake). In previous years, the event has happened on Sampsonia Way, the street that looks like an alley where museum/installation space the Mattress Factory is located. The street was closed off and a stage was set up at one end. This blend of close residential buildings and businesses made for an interesting production a few years ago. On the balcony of one of the houses, a Chinese poet shouted his prose in his native tongue while locally-born actor David Conrad translated across the alley on another building. Lake performed that year with the World Saxophone Quartet.

This year, the event was moved to Allegheny Commons West Park, right next to the National Aviary, where a huge tent was set up, with a pretty clear view of the stage wherever you sat, with numerous video screens all around the space too.

Lake brought his big band this time, who released a really solid album called Wheels about a year ago. Among other people, the band includes Darius Jones, the wild and woolly alto player who has released a few albums on AUM Fidelity and recently did a second album with pianist Matthew Shipp. I just reviewed the latter release so I felt like I needed to check out the show to see him in particular and also because I haven't gone to these events in probably about five years.

Knowing that I might be complicating things, I took my seven-year old son with me. He's no stranger to live music. A few weeks ago, he accompanied me to JJ Wright's local performance. And he did see Anthony Braxton perform at the Aviary at the ripe old age of 10 months (sleeping through a lot of it). Plus he has been to a bunch of Pittsburgh Symphony concerts for kids, and has headphones to wear when things get too loud. But all of that doesn't necessarily mean that he'll sit through a whole concert.

This marked the 10th anniversary of City of Asylum, which was given much fanfare to start the show. Then Lake came out and recited his own piece called "You Look Marvelous" which was an homage to the late Amiri Baraka. He called the band onstage by holding a droning note that everyone echoed as they made a procession through the audience to the stage.

"Plan" opened the set, letting everyone know this wasn't your typical big band. The stop-start lines of the theme gave way to a solo by Lake that was marked by some strong high shrieks that weren't always on mike.

Lake has cited Oliver Nelson and Duke Ellington as influences and "Sometimes" bore that out. The horn voices sounded rich, slowly moving into a more soulful mood before moving into some heavy swinging by the end. The contrast between this more traditional backdrop and soloists like Lake and Jones made the whole thing sound more unique. Lake's World Saxophone bandmate David Murray also leads a big band too, but when they brought on Macy Gray as a singer (seen last year at the Detroit Jazz Fest) the band sort of reduced to a large scale vamp band. Lake did nothing of the sort.

Even when the band covered OutKast's "The Whole World," and the backbeat got a little rigid, the heat was still there. The same goes for "Is It Real," where everyone was taking a few bars to stand up and wail.

After the band played those four tunes, they took a break so some of the poets could get up and do their thing. It was about an hour into the show and by then the kid's mind was gone. Actually his focus never made it into the tent after he saw a playground a few feet away. While he's getting to be old enough to leave unattended at a playground, I wasn't ready to do that on the North Side.

So we took our leave, via that playground, as the sponsors was saying their thing and as the poets got ready to do theirs.